Great Britain was home to the first recorded stagecoach in 1610 that traveled between Edinburgh and Leith. Horse-drawn stagecoaches often traveled pre-scheduled routes but could be hired for long-distance travel with a small number of passengers with light luggage.

Modern coaches started with stagecoaches, also sometimes referred to as carriages. Early motor buses were developed in the late 1890s but were not produced and used on a mass scale until 1910. One of the earliest iterations of an omnibus was launched in Paris in 1662, but they eventually spread throughout France and soon Great Britain, where the first bus line opened in 1824. The term “bus” comes from the word “omnibus,” which originally referred to a horse-drawn carriage that served as a public bus line. A La Compagnie Générale d’Ominibus (CGO) at Filles-du-Calvaire in Paris, circa 1890.

History of Buses and Coachesīuses and coaches have similar origins starting in Europe during the 1600s as horse-drawn vehicles. So you’ve heard the words coach, motorcoach, and charter bus thrown around, but how exactly are they different from a plain bus? There are actually quite a few differences between coaches and buses, including purpose, design, history, and amenities.

Bus coach